


Cohorts

by gala_apples



Category: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Genre: Guro, Other, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-30
Updated: 2013-08-30
Packaged: 2017-12-25 02:36:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/947597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A decade after Oogie Boogie dissolves, Lock thinks about how much he's contributed to her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cohorts

Lock’s not entirely sure when she learned that people’s insides don’t have to match their outsides and that you can decide what is more important. But she’s certain she learned it, like she learned a lot of other things, from Oogie Boogie. He’s easily the most obvious example of the disparity some bodies can have. His outsides were smooth stiff cloth, neatly formed into firm peaks for head and limbs. His insides were a million constantly moving little bugs. 

Compared to that, having a male body when she’s a girl isn’t that huge of a deal. Yes, she has a penis, which is wrong and uncomfortable, but Lock can pass in other ways. The red unitard she always wears can hold false breasts in place, which means her silhouette is always correct, and in Halloweentown there are more shadows than bright lights. Her chin’s maybe a little too square, but her devil’s mask hides that as well as Barrel’s skeleton mask hides his bright teal lips. Her hair is long and beautiful, the ends of it long enough to reach the top of her barbed tail.

It’s not like anyone in Halloweentown cares about how she reconciles herself. Most of the citizens have their own monstrosities to deal with, to display or hide as they choose. Gargoyle’s metal wings will never let him fly, but his body is small enough that his feet will never reach ground. And yet he leaves his house on a daily basis, taking hours to walk through the town on dented wingtips. There’s Wolfie, who started wearing clothing after some of his fur began to fall out in patches. And then there are people like Sally Skellington, who these days is more parts than whole, arm corralling her daughter from falling in the well in town as her leg plays soccer with her son in the backyard and the rest of her stays at home to make dinner.

Lock’s not fully surrounded by apathy, however. She’s got two great significant others who understand her. 

Or at least Shock does. Shock likes who she is -and why wouldn’t she, with grey-green skin and hair like snakes and real, genuine girlparts- but she somehow understands that Lock doesn’t. That the unitard will not be removed, that it can be slimed, or doused in kerosene, or splattered with pumpkin guts, but Lock won’t ever be stripping down to rinse off in the black river they way her fellow uncontracted henchmen do. Shock might hiss rude comments, but she’ll never expect her to be nude.

Barrel probably doesn’t get it, he really is as dumb as a brick. But the nice thing about not understanding is not caring. Not the same sort of indifference as the rest of the citizens of Halloweentown. It’s different when it’s based on companionship. Lock only had to say once that she was a girl for Barrel to agree that yeah, okay, he had two girlfriends that just happened to have different sets of genitals, but if one of his girlfriends could get on _his_ genitals, that would be great.

(Shock threw a wasps nest at him, and they both laughed at him, then the three of them crawled inside their walking tub and made out for hours, Barrel’s fat face even more swollen from the stings. It was nasty-good, like everything in Halloweentown.)

Oogie’s set up the course of Lock’s life in other ways too. He’s not the only thing to blame, if blame is really the right word for it. It doesn’t seem right, but Lock can never think of a better one. Shock’s the vocabulary artist, not her.

Location had a lot to do with it. Growing up in Halloweentown made her a different person than if she’d grown up in Christmastown, or Thanksgivingtown. When you spend every day of a year counting down to the day when you can sicken people, and the more horrified they are the more applause you get, it makes you think. What’s gross? What’s fascinating? What’s terrifying and nauseating and sexy and can something be all three? 

But when it comes down to it, the reason for her sex life being what it is really and truly comes from a path Oogie started. Jack Skellington too, but mostly Oogie. All those years ago Jack stopped her and Barrel and Shock from seeing the final attempt to make the town’s stolen Christmas right. Jack prevented them from following him to Oogie’s house of cards and they missed seeing Oogie dissolve and because of it, Lock’s spent her entire life imagining it. Every time it comes into her brain she can’t help but think about it at length. To this day if she sees a bug she thinks of what it must have felt like, falling apart. It was inevitable, really, that once she hit puberty and the hormones kicked in, all the ones she never wanted, that she’d flash on the missed scene while having a flood of feelings she didn’t know how to deal with. Oogie falling apart worked its way into her arousal, and it never really left.

Lucky her, then, that now that she knows how to negotiate sex in a way that works for her, her lovers are so fitting for a well crafted fantasy. 

Barrel’s shirt is really more of a preview of coming attractions than coverings for modesty or warmth. All his articles of clothing have bone outlines. They have as far back as Lock can remember. When Barrel takes off his clothing his true self is revealed, just like Wolfie. Unlike the poor werewolf, Barrel is mind-crushingly hot. His skin is only half formed around his bones. Every one of Barrel’s limbs look like tree roots partially protruding from the earth.

Barrel’s all skin and bones, and sometimes when he’s rocking against her Lock imagines that Shock will come up from behind and pull him back, impatient for her turn at sex. They’re always impatient with each other, hasty, in sex and in everything else. It’s a nasty love, one Lock isn’t sure she could stand with anyone else. Shock’s hands will slot into Barrel’s ribcage, a finger in each depression made by the blue-white skin bridging bones. The pressure she’ll push through her fingertips will make Barrel’s blood rise, make his skin take on a darker blue hue, like everywhere else the blood rushes. Unlike the both of them, Barrel hates to wear shoes, so his three toed feet are always flushed blue with blood by the time they get anywhere. His lips too, like he bites them constantly when they’re wearing masks and his girlfriends can’t yell at him. His cock too, of course. It’s a wicked teal during times like these.

Shock will lock her elbows so Barrel will find it harder to struggle, and then she’ll pull, demanding the stupid boy give her a chance at Lock, because Thirty First knows they’re all incapable of actually sharing. And instead of just going backwards Barrel will rip apart in her hands. 

If Shock did tear Barrel to pieces, all his parts would rain down on Lock in chunks of blue-white skin and gleaming white bone. He’d smear all over the red unitard she never takes off. If Shock did tear Barrel to pieces, Lock thinks she would pick up one of his humerus’ and press it between her legs. She’d rock back and forth on it until she came. She thinks that if she asked nicely and grabbed a femur that maybe Shock would straddle it with her and they could share the remnants of Barrel in their quest to an orgasm.

One day Lock might tell them what she likes. She’s fairly certain she knows how they’ll reply. Shock will understand, will most likely have already guessed that her girlfriend is into kinky stuff. Barrel won’t get the hideous beauty of it, but he’ll tell her if it gets her off she can imagine it as much as she wants, and if she wants to imagine it _right now_ , there’s a really good flat patch of cobblestone right over there.

One day, Oogie Boogie might reform from the earth, if there’s enough wriggling bugs converging, and something cloth nearby to hold him together. If he comes back, Lock will tell him what’s she’s become. Lock thinks he’ll be proud of his little henchman.


End file.
